Detentionaire: The Next Chapter
by mdrnpndr
Summary: The unofficial Detentionaire continuation!
1. Chapter 1

_Welcome back conspiracy buffs and... well, actually you don't really need to pay attention this time. I mean, I guess the conspiracy's over now, right? I think we got everyone who was on the bad side... of course, you should always expect the unexpected at A. Nigma High. I mean, this is the place where it all started, where a huge prank got me a year of detention. I found out who set me up a while ago, but after that stuff just went crazy - see, there's this pyramid under the school... well, was this pyramid under the school... wait, I guess is this pyramid under the school again... What I mean to say is, this ancient pyramid under the school got blown up but then rebuilt... but that wasn't even the craziest part. We - and I mean our little group of high school adventurers, or perhaps would-be prisoners at this crazy place called Coral Grove - had to fight MWF: Mann, Wurst, and Finnwich; you know, that company that runs the world! Oh, we defeated it - specifically, the head of the company, and her henchmen; oh, and we also got this crazy lizard dude who wanted to unleash his lizard species on the world - bonus! But now everything seems normal, or at least as normal as things can be at A. Nigma... all's well that ends well, right?_

The room was somehow bright and dark at the same time. Mystical creatures of the deep swam just outside the glass walls. The deep blue of the ocean contrasted greatly with their wooden surroundings.

They were happy - after all, they had just defeated the most powerful company in the world, stopping its plans for complete world domination right in their tracks. Yet the defeat wasn't really the first thing on their minds right now - most of their minds, anyways - for this small band of high schoolers was currently embraced in a group hug and just happy to have one another's companionship.

A chuckle from the massive monitor hanging to their side caught their attention. "Whoa, man, I can make all four stones spin at the same time!"

"Nice one, Zed!", said Lee, laughing along with the leader of the Skaters clique. Like many of the students at A. Nigma High, Zed had provided invaluable assistance to Lee in the latter's adventures. Lee thought it would only be polite to laugh along, even if he found the Skaters' humour, well, squirrel-brained for lack of a better term.

Lee turned to the other members of their little gathering, which had only just released the group hug, and asked: "Well, I guess we should be getting back to the sub or what?"

"Wait, what about everyone in crystal? What about my parents?" Lee looked over at Biffy, who didn't look particularly pleased with Lee's forgetfulness.

"Oh right, sorry Biff." Easily the biggest person in the room, Biffy's appearance fit that of a stereotypical bully, but Lee knew that in reality, he was one of the greatest friends he had.

"Whatever - I'll go catch up with them myself; you guys can take care of the crystal cleanup, right?"

"Biff? Biff wait! You didn't even take - ah, never mind.", Lee exclaimed, as he looked at the assortment of crystalizing weaponry that lay around them. Lee knew that although they might have defeated the company - or more technically the head of the company, along with a bunch of its workers - dangers could still be lurking in the massive, foreboding structure that was Coral Grove.

"So, what are we gonna do about everyone in crystal? Oh, and about running the company?", Kimmie asked. As head of the Glamazons, Kimmie also seemed to fit the stereotypical mold of the pretty, popular high school female, and yet like with Biffy, appearances could be deceiving.

"I don't know Kimmie... everything's just been so crazy lately... I need some time to think.", Lee said, glancing over at Tina, who had just put her hand on his shoulder and given him a warm smile. After all these years - he almost still couldn't believe it - they had finally kissed, right in the middle of the battle.

"It's okay Lee, I'm sure we'll figure everything out."

"Thanks, Tina.", Lee said, returning her smile with one of his own.

"Yo, guys... there's something weird going on here."


	2. Chapter 2

Lee would recognize that voice practically anywhere - it was his best bud since childhood, Camilio, or Cam for short. Right now, though, that vocal familiarity didn't matter, as Cam's face had suddenly appeared up close on the monitor that was their link to the school from Coral Grove. He looked quite distressed as Lee asked: "Cam... what is it?"

"Dude, you are not gonna believe this... the pyramid is talking!"

Lee raised an eyebrow. "Dude, you okay? Did Holger rub off on you or something?"

"Hey! Holger now have superpowers - he could easily tell if the pyramid really was talking or not!", chimed in Lee's other longtime friend.

"Again with the superpowers? Ugh...", said a girl in a snarky voice. Jenny had been part of the Outcasts clique at school until Lee's adventures - and her deep involvement in them - had swept her away from the others in the clique and earned her her rightful spot in Lee's ragtag gang.

"You no question Holger's superpowers now, okay?", Holger responded with his now-trademark disapproval of having his claim of unusual abilities questioned.

"Well, he did know about the missing principal, and about the Serpent's background...", Lee started to say, before a cough emanating from the monitor turned their collective attention back to it - or rather Cam in this case.

"Uh, yeah... anyways, are you sure Cam?"

"Positive, bro. Tell him, Brandy!", Cam responded with a trace of irritation.

"Yeah, well, it's not really the pyramid I think, more like someone - or something - inside it.", the girl next to Cam responded - and with more than a mere trace of annoyance in her case, but then that was quite normal for her. After all, she had aspired to not just be part of the Glamazons, but actually lead them - until unfortunate circumstances caused her bid for leadership to actually get her ejected from the coveted group.

"What!? But nobody opened it - nobody released any of those...", Lee said, thinking back to what the lizard monster, now crystalized in the same room as them, had been trying to do.

"I know man, it's mucho, mucho weird."

"Cam, Brandy, can you get close to the pyramid and try to figure out what - uh - 'it' is saying?"

"Sure thing, bro." Cam's irritation seemed to have evaporated, and his trademark smoothness returned. "Bro... it gets even weirder."

"Don't tell me... I've had just about enough weirdness for, like, a decade, thank you very much. Okay - what is it?"

"Man if Holger was here he'd totally be like... 'Dun dun dun dun...'"

"But Holger is here!", Holger exclaimed in a surprised tone of voice.

"No, I meant like... never mind."

"Ugh, come on, what is it?" Lee asked impatiently.

"It's this guy! He's got this weird, whiny voice and..." "No... it can't be..."

"You should open it!" "Oh, I wasn't asking." "Come on kid, stop trying to stall!" Lee suddenly had vivid flashbacks of the council member in question; specifically, his own interactions with the person, which had not been exactly favourable. However, Lee did feel sorry for him after what he had seen happen when the man took his pursuit of knowledge (and likely the gains from it) a bit too far...

Lee snapped back to the present, still speaking his thoughts aloud: "Didn't he like... well..." His eyes widened in shock. "No way! How is that even possible? How could he have..."

"I don't know bro, but we can't quite hear what he's saying, right Brandy?" The girl nodded.

"Can you get any closer? It's kind of important..."

"Okay, man, we'll try, but..." Lee watched on the screen as Cam and Brandy got close to the presumed location of the speech as they tried to listen to it - and a bit closer to each other than strictly necessary, Lee thought to himself, though who could blame them? After all, Cam and Brandy had just had their first kiss quite recently, and now after their own defeat of the company's operatives at the school had celebrated with an even more passionate one. Suddenly, Cam yelled into the apparatus: "Dude, sounds like he's asking for help - he's asking to let him out!"


	3. Chapter 3

Lee didn't know what to say. None of the group of students assembled at Coral Grove did. They all knew that the pyramid could only be opened during an eclipse - and that was another century or so away. They were looking at each other with sadness - sure, the council was bad, but they just couldn't believe that nothing could be done to help this person - when Cam asked, "Wait, what's going on? Why the long faces?"

"Ugh, don't you know?", Jenny asked.

"The pyramid can only be opened during an eclipse!", Tina added.

Cam's face went blank - he didn't know what to say either. Then he looked at Brandy, and they both said it at the same time: "Finnwich!"

The old man - well, old was a bit of a misnomer, given that his age was so advanced that he had augmented himself with steam-powered mechanical body parts in an effort to stay vibrant - who had been entirely silent during this exchange gave a start. Everyone turned to look at him, and then back at the pair who had spoken his name. Lee asked, "What do you mean? What does Finnwich have to do with it?"

"Dude..."

"No, I'm telling him this time," Brandy interrupted.

"Okay, fine..."

"When that monster dialed in, we, like, saw him talking to those creepy clones... they think that Finnwich can replicate an eclipse or something."

This time, everyone in the room was truly shocked. Everyone stared at Finnwich. Lee was the first to recover: "Finnwich!? Is this true!? But then, why did you... or why didn't you... I don't get it..." "You must understand, my boy - I've waited 112 long years for this." Not a good answer, Lee thought as he remembered that phrase that had surprised him at the time. How could Finnwich have risked everything not falling exactly into place for the opening of the pyramid just so that he could get the satisfaction of keeping Lee in the dark for a bit longer? Now he was doing it again, Lee thought angrily. It was time to get some answers.

For a moment, the room had fallen entirely silent. Then, Finnwich finally spoke: "Don't disappoint me, Manifestum! If I knew how to open it without an eclipse, don't you think I would have done just that?", he replied, clearly unfazed by the looks of shock all around him. "I'm just a bit confounded as to why they would think... well... even if I did possess the ability to generate a substitute for that cosmic event, I wouldn't do it!"

Lee was not pleased with this. "Finnwich, we gotta help him! We can't just leave him trapped in there!"

As Finnwich and Lee stared at each other, Tina decided to back Lee up. "He's right. We're the good guys. Leaving people trapped in pyramids is what bad guys do!"

Finnwich, however, remained unmoved. "I'm sorry, Manifestum. I greatly respect you - all of you - for what you've been able to do; however, I cannot bring myself to enable an event which could result in catastrophe. That is my final answer."

"Look, even if you don't want to help him - I'm tired of these guessing games. I want to know what they meant by you being able to generate an eclipse!", Lee said with evident frustration in his voice. "You know what? If you don't know... then how about we ask him?", Lee said, pointing his finger. The collective response was quite predictable: a shocked "What!?" filled the room - Lee was almost sure he even heard it from the monitor. "Well, clearly, Finnwich isn't going to help, and we need to try this.", he said, trying to reassure his friends that he wasn't completely off his rocker.

"But... it's not safe!", said Tina, clearly distraught.

This time, it was Jenny's turn to come up with an idea: "Wait, just use that!"

"Of course!", Lee replied, as he grabbed what Jenny was pointing at. "Okay, someone needs to do this with me. Anyone?", Lee said as he looked around the room.

Just as he was about to sigh that nobody was coming forward, Tina said, "Here, give it to me. I'll do it."

They flashed each other the briefest of smiles as they prepared to fire the weaponry almost simultaneously: "Okay, I go on 3, you go on 5, alright?" Tina nodded. Lee heard an elderly voice say, "Manifestum... what are you doing!?", but he paid him no attention; they had to get to the bottom of this after all, Finnwich or no Finnwich.

Tina, however, surprised Lee by snapping, "You're not helping us, you're keeping things from us - what are we supposed to do? Go, Lee!"

"One... two... wait a second!", Lee said, almost yelling that last part. "I just realized... someone's missing..."

"Duh, Biffy - he went to find his parents, remember?" Jenny responded, rolling her eyes.

"No, no, someone else," Lee said. There had been one other person in the room before - Lee was sure of it.

Then, they all seemed to say it simultaneously: "LYNCH!"


	4. Chapter 4

The teens just stood there dumbfounded. How could they have let him slip away - again!? There was little doubt in any of their minds that he was up to no good; after all, it wasn't like he hadn't betrayed - or tried to betray - his erstwhile friend Lee, as well as his wizened on-and-off employer, almost too many times to count by now.

"Aw man, why isn't Biffy here? He'd totally come up with a plan...", said Lee.

Then Jenny said, "Wait, what are we panicking about? We're in control of this place now, right? We can just call those robot freaks and have them catch him!"

"Great idea, but we don't exactly have robot controls in here. You'd need to go to the control room... wait, that elevator we came down in had a control room label or something like that in it, didn't it? Jenny? Jenny!"

Lee saw the girl grab a crystallizer and take off; as she left, he could just barely make out her muttering "No way is that creep getting the better of us again!" under her breath. Before Lee could react, Tina grabbed the mini-crystallizer she had brought in with her and ran off after her yelling "Jenny, wait!" The elevator, which the several groups currently in the room - the member of the lizard species, His Eminence, and his guards; Kimmie and her mom; and the rest of the students, along with Lee's mom - had used to get there had remained at the floor in question and so opened right away. By the time Lee did react, the girls were already inside.

"Oh no... this is bad..." Lee looked around the room and spotted Holger, who was still wearing the supersuit he had "borrowed" from Cassandra, Kimmie's mom and the aforementioned head of the company. "Holg, go after them! Quick!"

"Ay ay, Holger do, Holger protect friends!", the lanky, blond-haired teenager exclaimed as he flew off in the appropriate direction using the suit. He, however, chose to use the stairs on the side to go faster.

"Great... just great. Biffy still hasn't come back, a crazed lunatic is on the loose, and now everyone else has run off too."

"Ahem," Kimmie said in her usual, disinterested tone.

"Oh, right, sorry Kimmie," Lee sighed.

"Problems, guys?" Lee was startled by the voice - he had almost completely forgotten about the screen on the wall.

"You know it," Lee said, "listen, Cam, Brandy, can you make sure to keep things under control on your end? One place of insanity is plenty enough for me..."

"No probs, man," Cam said, smiling. "We're just cleaning up now - well, most of us," Cam continued, glaring at a certain student behind him who had been strumming his guitar for the past few minutes. Lee smiled back and then turned to Finnwich.

"Listen, Finnwich," Lee started, but the old man cut him off: "The answer remains no, Manifestum."

"No, wait... hear me out. Lynch running off reminded me of something..." "Don't you get it? Even if you did skiddadle your way home, they'd send your tushies right back here!" Lynch's sudden disappearance had reminded Lee of the phrase the former had used when they had tried to escape via sub but had their plan foiled by him. Now, though, the phrase gave Lee a new idea for an argument to use to try to convince Finnwich to help them reopen the pyramid.

"Even if we don't open the pyramid, someone else will! Someone like Lynch, looking for 'the secrets of the universe', or someone like Cassandra, looking to plunder that species' technology - either way, it's basically guaranteed."

"What do you suggest, Manifestum? That we speed up this inevitability? Surely that is not the best course of action to take at this time!"

"No... I'm suggesting that your device wasn't powerful enough. We need something stronger."

Finnwich considered this for a moment, and then said: "Of course, and I would be glad to assist with that, but how would reopening the Antiquis Triangulum be of use here?"

Lee started to speak, but then Finnwich continued: "I'm surprised you are so intent on doing so. Surely you, of all people, must realize the danger... you who are one of the few chosen ones to bear the mark... but then your brother has it as well, and he did not arrive at the appropriate conclusion either..."

"Finnwich, I... wait a second, what do you mean 'the mark'? Do you mean my tattoo?"

"Why, you don't know? Then I have already said too much!"

"Finnwich!"

Suddenly, the last person in the room who was not crystallized and had not yet spoken, only listening to all of these revelations in shock, decided to break silence: "His brother? Lee! What is this about?"


	5. Chapter 5

_Hey mystery fans, things have gone off the charts lately. Sure, we defeated the big bad - and her company - and saved the world, but stranger things are afoot now. First, Biffy spied his parents in said big bad company's headquarters - the question is, why were they there? That's what he's trying to find out now. Then, it turned out that one of the council members is trapped inside the pyramid! Sure, they're - or rather they were - the bad guys and all, but we can't just leave him in there. Of course, there's this one problem with someone getting into, or out of, the pyramid - it can only be opened during an eclipse, so for you non-astronomy buffs, once a century or so around here! Turns out, though, that the bad guys mentioned Finnwich apparently being able to replicate an eclipse. So, has Finnwich been lying to us - or to himself? Then, just as all this was happening, we realized that a certain peanut muncher had deserted us - Lynch! Could things possibly get any crazier?_

Lee desperately wanted answers from Finnwich, but explaining things to his mother took priority. "Mom... it's my brother, the Serpent. He had been working for them, until he switched sides and then himself got betrayed by Cassandra."

"But that's impossible... unless... no, it can't be..."

"Yes, I know... it seems impossible, but it's true: it was MWF that took him away from you when he was very young."

"Is he here?"

"Yes, he got zapped by Cassandra, so he should still be in the control room where that happened."

"I can't believe this... we need to see him... I need to see him... please, Lee, take me to him!"

Lee sighed, realizing that his grilling of Finnwich would have to wait. "Yes, mom... let's go."

As they walked to the elevator, Lee heard his mother quietly muttering to herself: "Al... how could you do this to me? Li meant everything to us... and then you went and..."

"Mom, what are you - wait, are you trying to say his real name is LI!?"

Before his mother could answer, an electronic voice made an announcement: "Security breach reported. Activating emergency lockdown." With only his mother inside, the elevator doors closed.

Lee actually yelled this time: "No!" He ran to the entrance to the stairs, before realizing that it, too, had been locked. "Can't you do something?", Lee said, turning to Finnwich.

"I'm afraid not - you see, this place was specifically reinforced against my own tools of the trade, so to speak, after... well..."

"So we're stuck here?" Lee was quickly breathing in and out, taking short but deep breaths. "Fine... since we're stuck here anyways," Lee said, slowly calming down, "I want answers, Finnwich. What were you talking about? What mark? Is it the tattoo?" Lee was suddenly aware that the automated security system had also shut down the monitor; their connection to the school had been broken, but privacy was exactly what Lee was looking for right now in any case.

Finnwich sighed. "Very well, Manifestum. It's time I tell you the story - the story of this company. You might want to listen in too, young lady," he continued, gesturing towards Kimmie. "After all, this does concern you as well. Where to begin? Ah yes, at the beginning - when the co-founders of this company, including myself, unwittingly helped A. Nigma High's founder and principal make a big mistake."

"Let me guess - the opening of the pyramid?"

"Once again, my boy, your deductive logic serves you well," Finnwich said, smiling.

Lee, however, frowned: "Wait... but you were looking for the location of the pyramid just before the eclipse!"


	6. Chapter 6

"Why yes indeed, my boy - your logic remains sound. However, I've always been quite forgetful - indeed, it may one day prove to be my undoing."

"Of course! You told me this during our first meeting - and about some prophecy as well." Lee's frown deepened. "But that doesn't matter right now... please go on."

"Very well... the four of us had no idea what was about to befall us: that we were about to be marked forever, and that Alexander, well..."

Lee thought he saw a momentary look of shock on Kimmie's normally-inscrutable face, but he was too immersed in the story to give it much thought. Then, Lee realized something: "Wait... why four and not three?"

"Ah, you see... it wasn't always Mann, Wurst, and Finnwich. There was a fourth: Ping."

Lee was speechless for a moment. "Ping?"

"Specifically, your great-grandfather." Lee didn't say anything, so Finnwich continued: "Where was I? Ah, yes. The last eclipse was a century ago - well, 112 years, to be more precise. Holding mirrors, the four of us had positioned ourselves precisely in the path of the eclipse beam; sure enough, it arrived exactly on schedule. We sent the beam down to the pyramid, allowing Alexander to open the door with the keys. Unfortunately, what happened next was quite terrible indeed." Here Finnwich paused and sighed for a moment before continuing.

"I was positioned on the floor just above the pyramid, so I was unable to observe the entire sequence of events. However, when myself and Wurst came down to see what was happening, we saw, to our shock, that a creature had appeared inside the structure. A brief fight broke out between the creature and our principal, and in the fight, the lever to open the pyramid from the inside was broken. There was nothing we could do as Alexander was knocked out cold; even the red Tazelwurm only barely managed to escape, grabbing one of the keys just before leaving. Then, as the door was about to be sealed for another century, the creature came out. That was when the four of us became marked."

Lee was dumbfounded by these revelations. He asked: "So the monster gave you markings? But then... what about the tattoo?"

"That, my boy, came much later. The creature from the pyramid was determined to find a way to open it again. With that being's guidance, we formed this company, with the creature in continuous pursuit of acquiring every resource possible to further that goal. However, we did not know this at the time, for that being referred to us as friends and appeared eager to help us achieve great success in our young lives. Of the four of us young whippersnappers, your great-grandfather was the most suspicious of the true intentions of this enterprise. Eventually, he disappeared, and tattooed over his mark so that he was protected from us. We could not find him no matter what we tried."

"Yours doesn't quite match, does it? But it does match his..." Lee was suddenly remembering what the Serpent had said not long ago. "Your father added a tattoo to your birthmark, and you added the same protection to him, but not me!" Lee said, more to himself at first: "Of course! That's what he was talking about! But wait... what about the eclipse? What did they mean by you being able to make one?"

"My boy, I told you already - surely I, who waited for so long for the precise moment to recur, would not have done so had I been able to replicate the event!"

"So is there really no way to open the pyramid until the next one?"

Finnwich looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said: "Perhaps it is time that I told you some of my own past."

"Your own past?", Lee asked.

"Why, yes... my involvement with this company, with Cassandra's plans, with..." - here Finnwich paused before continuing - "with the pyramid."


	7. Chapter 7

It was a dark and stormy night. That didn't matter, of course; where he was going, he knew quite well that even sunlight was barely able to reach, let alone inclement weather on the surface. Indeed, it was his first time coming to this particular part of this immense structure, despite having spent much of his life in it.

He spotted her right away. "Cassandra! Why, the years have not touched you one bit." He wasn't telling the complete truth, of course, but then who did in polite company?

"Finnwich. I don't think I can quite say the same about you - still experimenting with those hydraulics, are you?"

"Of course - you know it quite well. I cannot place my quest in the hands - metaphorically speaking, of course - of an object which may or may not be possible to open, let alone use, within my natural lifespan. But you also know quite well that I have not stopped by to discuss such trivial matters."

"Indeed.", the woman said, her gaze briefly wandering onto Finnwich's robotic body parts before settling on his eyes - those very eyes that had retained their warmth throughout the years, in sharp constrast to the icy cold of Cassandra's own. "Yet you have come in vain."

"Have I?", Finnwich asked, his own gaze varying much more widely, moving across the myriad of creatures in the deep visible just through the massive glass panes.

"I run things my way here now, and you know that."

"Why yes, you have done a fine job in my absence," the old man responded. "Yet this is also my company - the three of us founded it together, as you well know."

Cassandra stared at him intently, and then smiled - but it was not an altogether happy smile; it was of the knowing kind, quite close to a smirk, although it was difficult to tell with her.

"I'm afraid resuming your old position will not be possible. The company would, however, like to offer you another one - perhaps you might want to consider it...", Cassandra continued.

Finnwich said nothing at first. He had known this might be a result of this meeting with Cassandra, and he was quite prepared for it. "On the contrary, I will accept nothing lower than my rightful place as co-owner. In fact, you know quite well why I have come to take my place back now. I have little use for this position myself now..."

"Of course... I know very well what you have been up to these days... your little magic tricks... Why, maybe you might even be able to make a hobby out of them!", Cassandra said, again making that knowing facial expression.

"That is quite enough, Cassandra. I see that your stance is firm, but so is mine. It is time for me to leave. Our paths will cross again; however, our next meeting will not be quite as amicable."

"Finnwich, Finnwich, Finnwich," Cassandra said, in a mocking tone reminiscent of a mother scolding her child. "All that intelligence, yet you miscalculated. You should not have come here today."

"Cassandra, you know as well as I do that I am well-protected, just as you are yourself."

"Ah, but perhaps you are not acquainted with the latest in our own little magic tricks, are you Finnwich?" The man's eyes widened ever so slightly. "You know," Cassandra continued, "you may consider yourself untouchable, but this is not about you. This is about something we need, Finnwich - something this company needs. You will tell us - you will tell me - the one thing we want most of all. You will tell me how to open the pyramid."

"Open the pyramid? Come now, you are quite aware that neither of us so much as knows of its whereabouts, much less can determine how to unlock its secrets!", Finnwich replied.

"Of course I do! That is why your task will be here and not there. I suggest you get comfortable. We will provide you with everything you may need to crack the puzzle, but be forewarned: the consequences, should you attempt to deceive us, will be quite dire." Cassandra turned and began to leave.

"What if I say no?", Finnwich asked, but it was obvious the question was rhetorical. Cassandra actually laughed this time, but it was a chilling laugh, one that could only mean something bad was coming to whoever was on the receiving end of it.

"I wouldn't expect even you to attempt a foolhardy escape, of course, but in case you do..."


	8. Chapter 8

Lee had been fully immersed in Finnwich's story of his erstwhile meeting with Cassandra when the old man took a long pause. Lee looked around the room - at the still-turned-off screen, at the various figures still in crystal, and at Kimmie - who still seemed transfixed by Finnwich's story to the extent that one might think she had learned something of extreme importance to her. Just as he had all that time ago, Finnwich looked through the panes around them, observing the mystical creatures of the deep swimming around. Lee briefly did so too, but then his impatience - his desire to know more - got the better of him. "So what happened?", he asked.

"Of course, at that precise moment she pushed the button on the device she had just pulled out of her pocket, generating that force field you know quite well. This was the first time I had seen such a thing, and I had no knowledge of how to counter it. She left me then, confined to a small room, with a few tools of the trade she wanted me to do, so to speak. I was left to labour for days there, trying to figure out a solution to the task she had given me. It was difficult, but I persevered - knowing that I had the tools, if not to solve the problem, then at least to enable my escape."

"So how did you get out?", Lee asked, his impatience with Finnwich's long-winded diatribe returning. The latter, however, smiled.

"Ah, well, you see, what she was not aware of was that I had learned of a method to conjure up my staff anywhere, anytime. Of course, I could not let her find out about it - not until I had determined how, precisely, to use it to escape. I took a few hours of every day I was in there to work on figuring out the solution not to her problem, but to mine. Eventually, I stumbled upon the answer; the force field was now gone, and I fled."

"But I don't get it... what does this have to do with anything?", Lee inquired.

"Ah, that is really quite simple. You see, during my stay I had completed her task - in part. I had determined that only an extremely powerful, concentrated blast of pure energy could activate the Antiquis Triangulum. Of course, without the Manifester Arcainiumus, I had no way to determine what, if anything, besides a solar eclipse could provide such an amount of energy - although I had my theories, of course..." Finnwich stopped here, seemingly unwilling to continue for the moment.

"So wait, did you ever figure it out?", Lee asked.

"No, my boy, I did not; I'm afraid that much of that part was left to them. From my work in there, I was only able to guess that a combined approach - activating the pyramid's energy mechanism, and using both keys with the appropriate energy input - would be required to open that structure without the appropriate timing."

"So it wasn't ever figured out how to open it without an eclipse then?", Lee inquired.

"Not quite. You see, after I left the trap Cassandra had placed for me, I learned that they had found a replacement for my task - in fact, I heard that it was a student at the school."

"A student? Really?", Lee asked, slightly shocked.

"Unfortunately, my knowledge does not extend quite as far as to know who it was. However, one day I learned that not only had a way to perform the opening without an eclipse found, but that it had actually been attempted!"

"What!? How? What was it? Who did it?", Lee exclaimed, now simply stunned.

Before Finnwich could respond, however, a voice announced, "Security breach contained. Deactivating emergency lockdown."

Without saying a word, Lee grabbed a crystallizer and ran to the elevator. As he waited for the doors to open, he realized that Finnwich was standing next to him. "You're coming too?"

"Not quite. I have some important business to take care of upstairs." As the doors opened, Lee thought to himself: I'm going to need all my strength for whatever happens... next.


	9. Chapter 9

_Hi! Lee Ping here. Don't get that confused with Li Ping, my older brother. We're nothing alike - or at least we used to be nothing alike until he sort of switched sides. Anyways... after beating the most powerful company ever, we found out that one of the bad guys is trapped inside the pyramid, and we still haven't quite figured out a way to get him out. Why get him out, you ask? Well, one of the reasons is that - as Tina would say - we're the good guys, and good guys aren't really supposed to leave people trapped in pyramids. The other thing is that all of this has pointed to some huge stuff about the past that my pals and I had no clue about. Finnwich did, though, and though he didn't want to at first, he eventually filled us in - not entirely, though, since he was sort of interrupted. Oh, and by the way, when I said he filled "us" in, I meant myself and Kimmie - who seemed a bit shocked over Finnwich's revelations. Could she know something I don't?_

Finnwich continued mulling over past events to himself as he dusted off his old belongings. Never had he thought that this was how he would once again be in his quarters of old. Indeed, he had thought it very likely he would never see the inside of this room again. Everything in it seemed pristine, as if he had left it yesterday. Even the writing on the door still shone with the same quality as it had when first engraved in its gold lettering: "Maxwell Finnwich", with a smaller "Co-Founder" underneath.

He knew, however, that this could be his only chance to get what he had come for. Unfortunately, as with many things, his memory did not serve him very well, and even this one room posed a challenge in terms of finding things. Suddenly, he exclaimed: "Aha!" There it was - the object he needed right now more than ever. He picked it up, and as with the rest of the room, once dusted off, it looked as if it were just made yesterday - or gleamed, in its case.

* * *

><p>Lee ran, but he wasn't quite sure where. All he knew was that his mother needed to be kept safe, especially after MWF had kidnapped and cloned her. Right now, though, he knew it wasn't really safe at all here, particularly with that traitor Lynch on the loose. Surely this was the way to the main hall, he thought to himself - he had, after all, gotten off at the corresponding floor. Then he saw them. "Mom? Tina? Holger? Jenny? Lynch!?"<p>

"You're okay," Lee said, hugging his mom. "What happened? There was a security breach and you got taken away!"

"Oh, it was nothing - your friends were trying to keep us all safe," his mom replied.

"Wait," Lee said, "that was you!?"

"Yeah," Jenny responded. "And it worked, didn't it? We caught the creep!"

Lee sighed. "Well, since everything seems to be under control now," he said, glancing at Lynch, whose expression was uncharacteristically unreadable, "let's find Biffy and get back to the sub. It's time to go home."

* * *

><p>Biffy ran too, but he had a bit more certainty in his direction than Lee had had. He came to the spot where he had last seen his parents - the spot where he and Holger had inadvertedly broken Cassandra's supersuit. He had seen them go through a passage, one that had previously been blocked off for security. Now that security seemed disabled, though, and he went through it. At the end of the passage was a door, seemingly of the kind that led to a laboratory. He tried the doorknob, but it was locked. Then he heard a voice: "Who is it?" It was his mom's voice!<p>

"It's me, Biffy!"

"Biffy? What are you doing here?"

The door opened, revealing his parents and a spacious scientific room. "Well, I wanted to ask you the same thing, but..."

"Oh, we're just working on a newer prototype for the company," his mom began to reply; then his dad interjected: "but it's all top secret, so they sent us here."

"Oh, well," Biffy began sheepishly, "you don't know that the company's been... well... taken over?"

"Taken over? By whom?", his dad asked.

"You didn't hear it? Or did the music not affect you guys either? Wait... do you even have intercom here?", Biffy continued, realizing that this was likely a closed-off area.

"No, not at all," his dad said, "we are working without distractions here - highest priority."

"Oh, well," Biffy said again, and then sighed. "It's a bit of a long story..."

* * *

><p>Kimmie had been content to merely observe - but what Finnwich had said had shocked her. She knew quite well, of course, who the founders of the company were, and even a bit of their history - but nothing about the pyramid, nor of the Ping family's ancestral involvement with the company. Neither of things were what bothered her now, though. Something just didn't add up, and she knew that there was only one person who she knew could give her the answers she needed.<p>

Kimmie grabbed one of the crystallizers that was still lying around the room. She noticed that, conveniently enough, the screen had not come back on after the lockdown had ended. Perfect, she thought - privacy was just what she needed now. She set the weapon to decrystallize mode and aimed at her target - but very precisely, as she knew she needed to be now - and fired. "Kimberly," a voice then said, almost hissing, "you betrayed me. How could you?"

"Mom, I don't have time for this right now. You know I needed to help my friends. Look, what I need to know now is: what have you been hiding from me?"


	10. Chapter 10

"Where is he?"

"Oh, Biffy just left to find his parents - I would guess he's found them by now...", Lee started, but then saw his mother shake her head.

"No, Lee - where is he? Where is..." - here Lee's mother's lip trembled slightly - "your brother?"

Lee wanted to respond, but Jenny interjected: "You were looking for him? You could have asked us - we saw him get zapped by Cassandra, right Lee?"

"Wait, it's not the same room then?", Lee asked, now confused.

"Well, yeah, I guess," Jenny responded, "or else he would be here right now, right?"

"It was the place with the main announcement system...", Lee mused aloud. He then realized he'd seen a sign indicating just that on his way - or perhaps his run - here. "I think I know where that is. Let's go, mom - I'm taking you to see him."

They arrived at the indicated spot. To their surprise, there was no security system protection present - of course, it must have been disabled, they thought. Lee was the one to open the door - and this was indeed the room. The sound system which Cassandra had used to brainwash everyone at Coral Grove with the prank song (with Kimmie's help) was right in front of them - and to its side was the crystallized person they had come for. "It's him...", Lee's mom almost whispered.

"Mom, I'm gonna decrystallize him, but only partially. He's really dangerous now."

"Dangerous?"

"I told you - he was on their side until recently. We need to talk to him first." Lee set the crystallizer he was holding to decrystallize mode and fired.

"So, you have come for me..." Lee's brother wasted no time in assessing the situation. Then he spotted her, and his expression changed.

Lee's mother was sobbing at this point, so Lee comforted her as she said through her tears: "It's you! I almost can't believe it's true... we thought you were... I just can't..." None of them were quite sure what to do at this point.

"You..." - the Serpent's eyes widened - "you're my mother, aren't you? Dad told me you were being held here..."

"Yes," Lee said, "MWF took her just as it took you. This company tore our family apart... but now we're back together, right?" Lee's gaze shifted downward for a moment as he was unsure of his words. "Look, I need to know - are you on our side now or not?"

"Please, bro," the Serpent said, his trademark smoothness having largely returned, albeit mollified, "you and your merry little pranksters already won - didn't you?"

"How did you know?", Lee asked - after all, the Serpent hadn't exactly been kept up-to-date with the latest information while crystallized.

"Oh, please," the Serpent continued, "you're in the middle of one of the most heavily guarded areas here. If you hadn't already won, you'd already be back on the prison floor before you even decrystallized me."

"Well, I suppose...", Lee said, and then turned to the rest of the group: "So, what now?" His attempts to get back to the sub had repeatedly led to him forgetting something - or someone - important, after all, so he decided to consult with the others before planning where to go this time. However, in this case his line of thinking was actually correct.

"Well, I guess we should find Biffy now, right?", Tina said.

"I could help you with that, you know, like that one time," the Serpent said.

Lee looked around their little group. Nobody seemed to raise any objections, so he sighed and said: "Okay, but you better not double-cross us or anything - I'm trusting you like family here." Lee's expression softened slightly. "I mean, you are family, after all..."

"Don't worry, bro, I already told you... besides, my beef is with Cassandra now, as you know."

As Lee aimed the crystallizer again and prepared to fire it to decrystallize the Serpent completely, he remembered something important - to him, at least: "I wanted to ask... well... 'the Serpent' is your nickname, right?" Lee's brother nodded. "Then... is your real name Li?"


	11. Chapter 11

"Don't call me that! I have no daughter! You chose your friends over your own mother!" Cassandra's tone of voice was absolutely furious.

Kimmie tried to remain unfazed by this, however, and said: "Look, I know this isn't exactly the best time to be asking this, after what happened and all, but... you told me your grandmother - my great-grandmother - was Elizabeth Mann." Cassandra had turned away and closed her eyes in anger and said nothing. "Finnwich told us," Kimmie continued, "that all of the founders of this company - Ping included - were marked, and this mark is supposed to pass down, since Lee has it. If that's true, then... why do I not have the mark?"

"Bravo! Congratulations! You figured out a logical inconsistency. However, I'm afraid I'm not going to tell you anything. Go back to your friends - you obviously belong with them, not with your mother."

Kimmie could see that it was pointless trying to talk her mother into telling her what she needed to know now. "Fine," Kimmie said, after a long pause, "I'll do that. I guess I'll just have to tell Lee you won't help us open the pyramid."

Cassandra's anger suddenly turned to confusion, although she displayed virtually no outward signs of that fact. "What are you talking about? Why would that troublesome child want to open it?", she snapped.

"Nothing, just that there's some guy trapped inside and we wanted to free him, but none of us seem to know how. I thought, well, what with all your obvious secrets and all, that you might know something about that - but I guess asking you about it is pointless..."

Cassandra now had almost the same reaction that Lee had had, and in her case it was quite unusual to see: "No... it can't be..." However, in her case it was quite momentary and fleeting, and her cold gaze returned almost instantly. Kimmie was already at the elevator when her mother said: "Wait. Are you saying that tired old man doesn't know how to do it either?"

Kimmie turned, saying: "Duh, that was obviously part of what I meant."

Cassandra looked at the lizard being, who was still crystallized, and asked: "Why don't you ask him?"

"Oh, please - he doesn't know how to open it either. Finnwich told us he made this whole company just to figure that out!" It seemed to Kimmie that a momentary smirk crossed Cassandra's face after she said that, but perhaps it had just been her impression. Kimmie continued: "Look, you obviously want that thing opened, don't you? Tell me what you know - it could help us open it."

"Why would I..." Cassandra's expression then changed for a moment, as if she had had a moment of realization, and she said: "Fine - I'll tell you what you want. You see..." Cassandra paused for a moment, as if trying to decide where to begin - or perhaps simply what to say. "As you well know, I do not have the mark either. However, we are indeed descendants of Elizabeth. We are not marked because... why don't you have a seat, Kimberly?" Her mother's tone was now quite different - almost the opposite, in fact - of what it had been at the start of their conversation. "It's a long story, after all."


	12. Chapter 12

They walked in the direction the Serpent had suggested. He seemed to have some information about Coral Grove - and not just the deduced kind which he had used to figure out what had occurred what he was crystallized. However, for now at least they did not question it, as Lee's brother seemed mollified and seemed to be leading them in a logical direction (and in any case they had quite a few members in their group now, so they figured they had a good chance of fighting off any sudden danger).

Lee walked beside his mother. He suddenly remembered that he had an important question to ask her: "Mom, I know this is gonna sound weird, but... I'm definitely your son, and not your clone's son, right?"

"Of course! Why would you think otherwise?", his mom replied, with her tone the same as if he had just told her an obvious answer to a math question.

"Well... it's just that, with our names being almost the same and all, I thought..."

"What? You thought I confused you with your brother?" His mother's expression softened. "Of course not. You are both my sons and I love you both very much."

Lee smiled, and then asked, half-jokingly: "So you're a math teacher too, right? It's not just your clone?"

Some way behind them were Jenny and the Serpent (with Holger bringing up the rear, as they had left Lynch behind, partially encased in crystal). As they walked, however, Li quickly realized that Jenny seemed to be staring at him much of the time - and it wasn't exactly a pleasant stare; it was more of a glare of utter contempt, in fact. Finally, he could take it no longer: "What? What is it?"

"What is it? WHAT IS IT!?", Jenny replied, almost yelling the second time. "You know perfectly well what it is, buster! You tricked me, you betrayed me, you left me out in the woods twice - come to think of it, you probably even stole my bike!"

Li hung his head slightly. "Yes, it's true, I admit it - even the bike-stealing part," he said, though quickly realized that latter part might not be helping his case much, as Jenny's glare intensified when he said it. "Look, I'm really sorry about what I did."

"Sorry! Ha!", Jenny snapped. "Sorry was for the first time - now it won't even come close to cutting it!"

"I had to do it! I was working for them. I was on the wrong side, I know, but you have to do what you have to do sometimes. Besides..." - here Li hesitated for a moment - "I got to know you before they instructed me to do that."

Jenny's gaze softened slightly. "Really? Well... okay, tell me then: did you really like like me, or was that just another one of your tricks?"

Li seemed slightly shocked by this question, but his response was cut off as his brother saw several people walking towards them and exclaimed: "Biffy! Mr. and Mrs. Goldstein! You're okay!"

Both of their groups stopped as they caught up to each other. "Oh hey Lee! Yeah, my parents are fine - they were just working on some top-secret prototype or something. Can you imagine it? Their work was so important that they weren't even affected by all that stuff!"

"Really?", Lee asked. "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter now. It's time to get on that sub and go home."

"Ping, you're generally smart and all but you can be so dense sometimes," the faux-bully responded. "Have you considered who's going to be running this place after we leave? Heck, those people who got crystallized are probably still like that, aren't they?"

"Uh...", Lee was embarrassed and wasn't sure what to say. He looked around their group; everyone seemed to be ashamed as well. Finally, he said: "Yeah, none of us really thought much about that... well, Kimmie did, actually...", suddenly remembering the girl's statement back at the very bottom of Coral Grove.

"Kimmie? Really?", Biffy began, but then saw Lee's slight smirk and exclaimed: "Yeah, whatever, uh... anyways, as it happens, I already have a plan for just that. Specifically, my parents have decided to finish their project - just because the company's been taken over doesn't mean their job is over, you know. They can supervise this place for now."

"Great," Lee said, "as it happens, we need to leave as soon as possible, because..." Lee frowned. "Wait... you're just gonna leave your parents here?"

It was Biffy's turn to have his response cut off, as the girl whose name they had just mentioned was running towards them! "Guys, we need to go, now!", Kimmie said, quite obviously out of breath.

"What is it? What's going on?", Biffy asked, shocked even more than the rest of them at her appearance - in every sense of the word.

"I'll explain on the sub! Just go!"


	13. Chapter 13

_Sup guys, Kimmie here. Surprised to see me instead of Lee? Well, I would be too - except that I just found out I'm smack-dab in the middle of this huge conspiracy. See, my great-grandmother Elizabeth Mann helped found Mann, Wurst, and Finnwich, the company that basically owns the world. My mom Cassandra runs it these days, or rather she did until very recently, when Lee and his friends stopped her world domination plans - with a bit of help from me. Now, though, my mom told me a huge secret about our past. Apparently, there was this kid at our school many years ago who somehow figured out a way to open the pyramid without needing an eclipse - and apparently, trying this out involved me and my mom. This is all so weird... I really miss the good old days when I could just enjoy being a Glamazon, cream of the crop in high school social terms - oh and teasing Biffy, of course. Wait... don't tell him I said that! Ever!_

Kimmie couldn't believe it. All her life she had remembered a flash and searing pain from some early experience that she just couldn't explain - until now. It all made so much sense now! "But wait...", she asked her mom, "why did it fail to open it then? Was the method wrong then?"

"No, the method was not wrong. It was all..." Cassandra's response was cut short as the monitor suddenly came to life - metaphorically speaking, of course. Kimmie was shocked. It was Barrage!

"Message received. Remote signal sent. Coral Grove self-destruct override activated with t minus 5 minutes. Emergency rescue forces deployed."

Realizing something was amiss, Kimmie had got up from where she had been sitting while talking to her mother and had slowly backed away towards the stairs. This was a very good thing for her, for at that precise moment, several robots stormed in from the elevator. How was it possible?, Kimmie thought. They had defeated all of them! She had no time to ponder on this further, however, as while one of the robots was busy freeing her mother from the crystal, and another seemed to be aiming a crystallizer somewhere else, though Kimmie didn't notice where, yet another one of them had just fired crystal at her! She had only just barely dodged the ray and entered the stairwell when the opening to it closed and locked, just as it had not long before - and she thought she heard her mother yell loudly on the other side, "YOU INCOMPETENT!"

She ran as fast as she could, knowing that she had to inform the others before it was too late. However, the building was extremely high, and though the control room certainly wasn't on the highest floor (indeed, it seemed to be somewhere below ground floor, something Kimmie would have considered strange had she actually had time to evaluate it given the circumstances), it wasn't on the lowest either - and her high heels certainly didn't help. Kimmie quickly found herself out of breath, but she finally managed to reach the floor where she was headed - the same floor on which her mother had played the hypnotizing music and betrayed the Serpent. When she finally got to the control room where they had been, however, she thought it was empty at first. Then she spotted someone partly in crystal. "Where... did... they... go...?", Kimmie asked, in between taking deep breaths.

"Yeah, like I'm just going to tell you. You're with them, aren't you?"

"Whatever - I'll find them myself." Kimmie ran out into the main hallway - and there she spotted them. "Guys, we need to go now!" She saw the looks of shock on their faces, and heard Biffy ask something, but didn't pay much attention to it: "I'll explain on the sub! Just go!"


	14. Chapter 14

As they stood there, largely frozen in shock, all the other members of their now-sizeable group managed to tease out of Kimmie was that the base was about to explode - oh, and that her mother had told her how to open the pyramid.

"What about everyone else? Like your mom, Kimmie? And all the workers here?", Tina asked, clearly distressed at the thought.

"Don't worry, my mom got herself out, and her robots are probably getting everyone else out too! We only have 5 minutes - probably less time now!", Kimmie responded, remembering the particular phrasing of what Barrage had said. As if to emphasize Kimmie's point, they heard what seemed to be Lynch being decrystallized. "Just go!", she repeated. They barely dodged as a single robot had appeared from the same area Kimmie had just left and fired a crystallizer at them.

They began running to the sub. They knew that it might be taken over remotely, of course, but if Coral Grove was indeed to be no more in just a few minutes then that didn't matter, they supposed. The same submarine they had arrived in was waiting for them. Then, Lee was the one who realized they had forgotten something this time: "Wait... how are we supposed to operate it!?"

"Perhaps I can be of assistance." Everyone in the group was speechless as Finnwich had just appeared behind them, seemingly out of nowhere. He carried a remote of the same type Lynch had previously used with him. "What are you waiting for? Go!"

Most of the group hesitated no longer as everyone in it climbed into the exact same hatch a few of them had climbed out of only a while ago. Lee was the last to get in, and he hesitated on the way: "What about you?" His question was quickly answered, however, as more robots appeared behind Finnwich.

"Take this and go! I'll hold them off!", Finnwich said, tossing Lee the remote. Lee was stunned at this but quickly recovered and finished climbing in, closing the hatch behind him. As he did so, he noticed Finnwich's erstwhile staff materialize out of thin air and the old man preparing to fight the robots with it.

They shuffled into the spacious interior of the submarine, carefully avoiding the downed blue robot - or fancy bot, as they liked to call that particular type - inside it. Lee and several of his friends had disabled it, but right now they weren't about to take any chances that one of them might re-enable it accidentally. "Why aren't we moving yet?", Kimmie inquired anxiously.

Lee couldn't help himself. He grinned, showing them the remote. "It's fine, we're home free!", he said, pushing the button to launch the sub. Out of the windows they thought they saw Finnwich disappear, but it was too late to confirm that as the craft submerged.

"We made it!", Tina exclaimed.

"Oh, yiminy crackercakes!", Holger said.

"Careful, guys," Lee said, but he was still smiling slightly. "Remember what happened last time you said that?" He was referring, of course, to their previous attempted escape with this same vehicle, which had been quickly aborted by Lynch.

"So Kimmie," Lee continued, turning to the girl in question, "what were you saying about the pyramid? Your mom told you how to open it?"

"Well," she began, "it's a long story - and I'm not sure this is the right time to talk about it..."

"That's okay!", Holger exclaimed. "We are ready to listen to any story! Especially long ones!", he continued, in his usual somewhat-ungrammatical phrasing.

"Fine, here goes: basically, it turns out that my mom and I had tried to open the pyramid a long time ago."

Everyone gasped at this. Lee asked, "But how? How is that possible?"

"Well, I was a baby back then! I obviously don't remember!", Kimmie said, going on the defensive.

"Ugh, why do you always have to be so difficult? That's obviously not what he was asking about!", Biffy said, irritated.

"Okay, okay, chill," Lee quickly interjected, seeing the on-and-off romantic pair glaring at each other and trying to defuse the tension. "So what happened, Kimmie?"

"Okay, so basically... my mom took me as a baby and used our marks to try to open it. We obviously failed, though - and lost our marks for it."

"You lost your marks!?", Lee exclaimed. Then, he realized he wasn't the only one confused - and that the others were even more confused than he was.

"Uh... what marks? Lee, what is she talking about?", Biffy asked. Before Lee could respond, however, they heard an explosion of truly immense proportions behind them, and peered out the sub to try to see what had occurred.

They then looked at each other without saying a single word. None of them had seen any other submarines leaving.


	15. Chapter 15

"She... she didn't get out..." Kimmie was the first to say anything after the shock of seeing the entire underwater structure disintegrate right before their eyes - and nothing come out of it.

"No... that can't be...", Lee said, his eyes wide in shock.

"Of course not!" Biffy tried to assuage their fears. "They must have escaped on another sub... out the back! Yeah! That's it! They escaped from the other side... so that's why we didn't see it!"

Then Jenny had an idea. "Wait... you guys have been around here, haven't you? Where would this place have a second sub?"

"Don't look at us...", Mr. Goldstein said. "We don't know anything about this place, really. They just brought us here for our work."

Everyone had turned to look at Li. After a long silence, he said: "Well, I've been around here and I've never seen another submarine. In fact, I'm not quite sure why you all thought there should have been another..."

Everyone gasped as Kimmie lunged at him. "You... it's... all... your... fault!" They weren't sure whether to be more shocked at the fact that she was repeatedly punching him - although her punches had scarce more impact than those she had delivered when Li had attacked her mom not long ago - or that she was crying, something that none of them could recall ever having seen before. "You... wanted... her... dead!"

"Wait! Stop!" Biffy tried to stop the confrontation. "Look, we don't know what happened. If those robots were unfreezing people, there probably was some sort of escape plan. Don't assume the worst!", he continued, trying to comfort Kimmie, who had now stopped attacking Li and simply looked empty.

Then Kimmie said, wiping away her tears: "Wait, maybe you're right. Barrage's command included 'rescue forces', after all..."

"Barrage's command!? What?", Biffy said, startled at this revelation.

"Ugh... you are so... insensitive! Jerks, that's what all of you are! All you want is information, information, information!", Kimmie said, looking ready to cry again, although some of her former haughtiness had now returned.

"No... Kimmie...", Lee began, but then turned to his brother with a realization: "You just got on here with us knowing that? You just abandoned everyone else knowing that? Just whose side are you really on!?" Lee's voice rose as he became suspicious of his brother once more.

"No.", Li said simply, then elaborated. "First, we didn't have enough time to get everyone here. Second, even if we did... there's no way all of us could fit in here with all this cargo, and there definitely wasn't enough time to get it out. Third - are you forgetting they were trying to crystallize us!?"

"Well, I suppose..." Lee trailed off. He was now more unsure of what to do - what to say - than ever. "Look, Kimmie, I'm not sure how to say this but... you're right. We do need information. We need information to stop something like that from ever happening again."

Kimmie sighed deeply. "Fine. When my mom" - here she sniffled briefly - "finished telling me the story about the pyramid, Barrage suddenly appeared on the screen. He said - but not in his normal voice, it sounded like he was under mind control or something - that the place was going to explode, and that emergency resuce forces had been activated. Wait... of course!", Kimmie said, suddenly realizing something. "It was my mom... she must have added that to his instruction when she sent that message to shut him down... when she was talking to our other principal on her phone." Kimmie paused, then continued. "As for the pyramid, well... as far as I can tell, you just replace the eclipse with two marks from the pyramid or something like that."

Li chose to chime in at what was quite possibly the most inopportune moment to say something like this. "You're a lot smarter than I thought."

Kimmie glared at him, but it was Jenny's turn to attack him - verbally, though, in her case: "You know... you really are an insensitive jerk. I can't believe we almost dated!"

"Jenny, now really isn't the time...", Lee said through gritted teeth.

Biffy, however, wasn't on the same page. "Whoa, hold the phone: you guys almost dated!?"


	16. Chapter 16

"Yeah," Jenny responded. "And it was awful! He tricked me in like every possible way."

"I told you... I had to...", the Serpent began, and then paused. "And to answer your question from before: yes, I did sort of like you."

Lee had been looking from Jenny to his brother and back during this exchange. He now thought Jenny was about to say something in response to that last part, but he decided to interrupt: "Seriously, guys, now is so not the time to figure out our romantic relationships!"

Biffy chuckled. "Yeah, like you and Tina weren't kissing literally in the middle of the battle, right? Like literally right in front of the just-arrived monster?"

Lee and Tina both blushed slightly. Lee's mother piped up inquisitively: "When was this? Lee, did you kiss when I was frozen?"

Lee began to respond sheepishly: "Uh..." Then he realized something: "Of course! That was the monster Finnwich was talking about!"

"Doy!" Kimmie was clearly becoming herself again. "That was so obv! I figured that out like right away when he mentioned the stuff about the marks and everything."

"You know...", Jenny began with a slight smirk. "Since we're talking about romantic relationships and all... you two would be perfect for each other!", she said, pointing at Kimmie and the Serpent.

"Seriously? Us?", Kimmie said in shock. "I don't think so."

"Why not?", Jenny continued. "No offense, but you're both not exactly the nicest people around, and you're both sneaky... not to mention that you both have weird connections to MWF, right?"

"Like you're any better," Kimmie retorted.

"What? I'm sarcastic, okay? You're just... well... jerks. Sorry for using your term given the... uh... circumstances, but you know what I mean."

"Uh, Jenny? I sort of have to agree with Kimmie here." It was Tina, surprising Lee not for the first time recently. "You're not exactly Ms. Nice McNice either. Remember how mean you were to me before we became friends?"

"Yeah, and now I'm thinking softening up to you might have been a mistake. Traitor!", Jenny snapped.

"Meanie!", Tina snapped back.

"'Meanie' isn't much of a comeback, you know...", Biffy added. He had been quietly chuckling throughout the later part of this exchange.

"Says the guy who was gonna leave his parents to run Coral Grove by themselves," Jenny retorted.

Biffy's mom piped up. "Actually, Biffy offered to stay with us while his friends left, at least for a while. He's such a good boy!"

Biffy smiled triumphantly, and then smirked at Jenny. "See?"

"Enough!" Lee had had it with this. "Why can't you girls just get along? And Biffy, seriously - you're not helping! Ugh!"

"Holger soothe everyone's nerves with tale of friendship cake, oven-fresh!"

Apparently, this quip from Holger was exactly what was needed to bridge the discord between the rest of the teens. Several of them - those who were far more familiar with Holger's stories than they had ever wanted to be - yelled "No!" at the same time.

"No! No stories, no songs, poems, allegories, or anecdotes! Nothing!", Biffy said, repeating almost word-for-word what he had quipped at Holger last time they were stuck together and he and the others were forced to listen to Holger's tale.

"Aw... How about...", Holger began.

"Enough!", Lee exclaimed again. "What we need to do now is to make sure that nobody else... well..." He paused and sighed. "We're going to do what we originally set out to do. We're going to open the pyramid and let that guy out, and then...", Lee hesitated for a moment - he wasn't sure whether he was quite ready to reveal his plan, particularly in present company.

"And then what?", Biffy asked impatiently.

"And then... we're going to destroy the pyramid for good."


	17. Chapter 17

_Previously, on Detentionaire:_

_"But wait... why did it fail to open it then? Was the method wrong then?"_

_"No, the method was not wrong. It was all..."_

_"Message received. Remote signal sent. Coral Grove self-destruct override activated with t minus 5 minutes. Emergency rescue forces deployed."_

_"I'll explain on the sub! Just go!"_

_"What about everyone else? Like your mom, Kimmie? And all the workers here?"_

_"Don't worry, my mom got herself out, and her robots are probably getting everyone else out too!"_

_"Take this and go! I'll hold them off!"_

_"You lost your marks!?"_

_"She... she didn't get out..."_

_"No... that can't be..."_

The now-sizeable group disembarked from the submarine and headed towards the flying machines parked nearby - the same ones that had nearly taken Lee and Tina to Coral Grove all that time ago. "Alright, look, these things aren't that big... I'll take one, you" - here Lee gestured towards Biffy - "grab that one, and Holg can drive the third one."

"Uh, Lee... don't you remember? You can't open the tunnel entrance, not even with one of the keys!", Biffy exclaimed with some impatience. "Oh, and even if you could, we - well, most of us", Biffy said, glaring at Holger, "weren't exactly the best drivers around last time."

"You're right. I guess we'll have to go to the casino then...", Lee said, trailing off, and then with some more determination: "Come on, let's go!"

They were about to leave when Li suddenly exclaimed: "Wait! We may need to be cautious. If what she said is correct," Li continued, nodding towards Kimmie, "even my casino might not exactly be very welcoming right now."

Lee sighed in agreement with his brother. "He's right. We're gonna go, but guys - be careful."

As they walked up to the elevator to the casino, Biffy asked Lee: "So, about this pyramid destruction plan of yours..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know... I haven't figured out the details yet, as usual. It's gonna be tough to do it on our own, of course, but I'm working on it!"

"Yeah, because you've managed all of this so well by yourself until now, right? Going solo much?" Lee rolled his eyes at Biffy's remark, but he smiled slightly at the same time.

"Lee," Tina said, "we're all in this together. Don't worry. With all of us working together, we'll figure it out," Tina continued, exchanging smiles with Lee.

Suddenly, Lee's brother yelled: "Run! Now!"

"What is it?", Lee exclaimed.

"It's gone! They've captured it! Just run!", Li continued, already having set off towards the flying machines.

Lee suddenly realized what his brother had noticed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a camera swivel around in their general direction. He took off running after Li, and almost immediately so did the rest of them. "Quick, into the transports!", Lee exclaimed.

"It's locked, remember?", Biffy yelled.

"I don't care - there are only three of these here! They can't follow us like this!" The sense of urgency was suddenly heightened as the elevator doors opened to reveal several burly-looking men. With some help from the adults among them, they finally managed to start the vehicles. They escaped just as the men had almost reached them. Turning around, they saw that the men had stopped chasing them.

"Well, I guess it's out of the frying pan and...", Lee started to say to Biffy, whose craft was hovering side by side with his.

Biffy, however, interrupted him: "Don't say it. Just don't."

Their journey was quick and uneventful, but when they had almost reached their destination, Lee exclaimed: "Uh, Biff, remember that key thing?"

"Yeah, what about it?", Biffy said, having turned his head back slightly to look at Lee. "I told you, you can't open it!" Then he turned his gaze forward again and saw what Lee had just seen.

"I don't think that's going to be a problem."

The passageway to the pyramid was open for some reason. Not only that, but the room containing the structure was completely empty. They all thought this was strange, but what they (or at least those in their group with knowledge of the objects) thought was completely bizarre was what they found lying on the floor: the book and cipher - and next to them, one of the keys!


	18. Chapter 18

"Guys, I've got a bad feeling about this." Jenny had finally spoken up after a long silence.

"Yeah, me too," Lee responded, "but we gotta do what we gotta do. We need to read the book to figure out exactly how to open it with two marks, just like Kimmie mentioned."

They sat in an approximate circle - or oval, particularly since Holger seemed to refuse to sit in any location that would fit a circular approximation - and leafed through the book, trying to find any and all possible information that would help them on their current quest.

"This is pointless," Biffy said. "There's nothing here..."

"There has to be!", Lee exclaimed.

"Are you sure you understood what happened correctly?", Li asked, turning to Kimmie.

The girl responded with her own question: "Are you asking me if I could understand what my own mom was saying?"

"No, no, I was just...", Li said, frantically trying to back off as he now clearly saw where this was going.

Just in time for Li, Jenny announced: "Wait - here it is! She's right - it looks like all you do is have two people with the marks open it with the two keys!"

"Two keys... wait, that's it! That's why it didn't open before - they didn't have the second one, right?", Kimmie asked.

"Yeah, they didn't!", Lee exclaimed. "Wait... but that means... Li?"

"I knew this was coming. I guess I owe it to all of you." Li sighed. "Come on, bro - let's go do this."

Lee took the key he had been carrying out of his pocket as his brother picked up the one on the ground. They walked to the pyramid's entrance and placed the keys in their slots.

"Ready?", Lee asked.

"Ready.", his brother responded, with what seemed to Lee to be his first actual smile since Lee had first seen him.

"Okay... now! Turn the key!" For the second time in his life, Lee found himself hearing that phrase - except this time he himself was speaking it. However, what happened next was not what happened last time. Indeed, what happened next truly shocked them both.

Absolutely nothing happened.

They knew that there was a slight risk of being wrong and being put into a coma by the pyramid as a result. They had both - no, all - been prepared for it. However, nothing could have prepared them for this... nothing at all.

"This is impossible," Lee said weakly.

"Something must be wrong," his brother responded. "I mean, something must be wrong with the pyramid. It couldn't normally just do nothing at all when someone tries to open it, right?"

"Maybe it knows two people are trying to open it, and maybe we're doing something wrong. Maybe it knows something bad is going to happen if it opens, and doesn't want to open. Maybe... eh, how should I know? This is all so...", Lee said quickly at first, then trailing off.

"Whoa, slow down," Biffy said. "There's gotta be a reasonable explanation for this. Come on, everyone - we need to figure this out. What could possibly have gone wrong."

"I don't know... maybe the pyramid is broken?", Jenny suggested, half-jokingly.

"Jenny, this really isn't the time!", Tina snapped, more in support of Lee than in criticism of Jenny's suggestion.

"Wait... wait... wait! That's it!", Lee exclaimed.

"What is it? What's it?", Tina asked.


	19. Chapter 19

"Whoa, man, I can make all four stones spin at the same time!" Lee had suddenly remembered what Zed of the Skaters had said a while back.

"Guys, the Skaters were playing with some of the stones from the pyramid, remember? They must not have put them back! Just gotta remember now... oh yeah, they were over there!", Lee shouted as he ran to the location he had indicated.

There they were... four stones from the pyramid, just as Zed had said. "Okay, we need to use the cipher to match these up and finish building the pyramid.", Lee said.

"Wait... but where do we put them?", Jenny asked.

"We'll need to take turns using the cipher. First, let's get the numbers off the stones. Then we can use the cipher to find the spots on the pyramid where these stones are missing from," Lee responded.

"Sounds like a plan! Let's do this!", Biffy exclaimed.

It took them some time, but they finally found the places where the stones were supposed to go, and fit them in.

"Okay," Lee said. "Are you ready to do it again?", he asked his brother.

"Let's go," Li responded.

They walked up to the pyramid entrance and places the keys in the keyholes, just as before. "Okay... now! Turn the key!", Lee yelled again.

"Manifestum! No!", a voice suddenly cried out, but slightly too late: the keys had already been turned. The pyramid emitted a bright light, and the Ping brothers felt a sharp pain where their marks were located - or rather, were previously located, as Li looked at his arm and realized the mark was no longer there. For his part, Lee guessed the same had happened to his mark, although he could not exactly see whether that was the case through his tattoo.

Lee turned towards the source of the latest yell in the room. "Finnwich," he breathed, but he had little time to dwell on the wizard's return: the pyramid was opening! Inside the pyramid, Lee saw the council member who had requested rescue slowly appear as the entrance opened wider and wider. "Are you okay?", Lee asked.

"Oh, I'm quite a bit better than okay... but I suppose I should thank you lot for opening it. You see, while I was in here, I made some new friends..." It was then that Lee saw them. The same species of giant lizard monster - there were many more of them!

"No!", Lee yelled.

"Manifestum, what have you done?", Finnwich exclaimed.

"No," Lee repeated quietly.

"Ah, but I think yes," the council member said. "Round 'em up, boys! I think it's time for a little managerial change, don't you agree?" He laughed at his little joke as the monsters came out of the pyramid and began to surround the group of people. Just after they had all exited the structure, Lee watched as the entrance shut once more, seemingly of its own accord. Was it because the pyramid knew none of the creatures were inside any longer?

"Oh, and I think we'll be taking these, yes?" The council member reached out to take the keys to the pyramid. He first grabbed the one Li was holding, and then turned to his brother.

"Don't give it to him, Lee!" Lee was surprised to hear Tina, of all the people in their group, yell this. Jenny seemed to support her in this ambition: "Yeah! Get your grubby paws off it, buster! It's ours!" He knew, however, that the safety of their group could quite possibly depend on him handing over the key.

Suddenly, smoke and rays of light filled the air: Finnwich was battling the monsters with his magic! "No!", Lee yelled, as he saw the wizard get caught and taken to their group.

"Looks like your little escape plan has failed - or should I say, been foiled," the council member said, laughing again.

That was when the real chaos started. "ATTACK!", a voice somehow familiar to Lee yelled from somewhere behind him, and he turned to see a huge number of robots of various types - but all recognizable as types Lee had seen before - charged at the monsters. Crystallizer rays flew seemingly everywhere, and Finnwich managed to free himself as the lizard creatures were distracted by these new arrivals. Joining the fray, Finnwich shot magical rays of light seemingly every which way.

Their little group scattered as the monsters attacked them. While he seemed to spot most of them managing to get away from the heated action safely, Finnwich seemed to have disappeared. Lee saw something shiny on the floor - it was one of the keys! Where was the other one?

Out of the corner of his eye, Lee thought he saw some employees he recognized from Coral Grove! Could it be? Just as he had spotted the leader of the group, a massive explosion rocked the room. Someone had thrown exploding Green Apple Splat gas right in the middle of the fight. It seemed to have little effect on the fighting monsters and robots, but Lee was not nearly as unaffected. Cassandra... helping us... it can't be... Lee blacked out.


	20. Chapter 20

When Lee came to, he quickly realized that he wasn't in the same place as before. He could still hear the fighting going on somewhere not far away. Great, he thought, I just passed out and got carried away by someone like a coward. Then he heard a voice - a voice he recognized almost immediately, but he wasn't sure if this person's presence here was a good or bad thing in this case. It was Cassandra!

"Good, you're awake." She snapped her fingers, and Lee, still groggy from the Green Apple Splat fumes, blearily saw two people who seemed to be workers from Coral Grove leave them. "Here's what I need you to do for me now: tell me everything you know about the pyramid and those creatures, especially everything about how to stop them."

"Uh... well...", Lee began, unsure as to his response, or even whether he should respond at all in this situation.

"Surely you had a plan coming here?", Cassandra demanded.

"Okay, but... why are you helping us... and how did you get out?", Lee asked, still unsure as to whether full co-operation was presently a good idea or not.

"Isn't it obvious? It isn't exactly good for business if those beings take over - but we don't have time for this anymore. Tell me what you know!"

"Well... we were planning to destroy the pyramid. We read the book to try to..."

Lee was interrupted by Cassandra's mocking laugh. "This? This is the Leader of the Chosen?" Then she looked away from Lee for a moment. "Niles," she continued, "seems to me like you didn't get this one right..."

"Wait," Lee said, suddenly realizing something. "Niles? Niles Peg!?"

"Surprised?", Cassandra said, turning back to Lee.

Lee thought about all that had happened over the past while. "Not in the least," he responded. He realized that it all made sense now. "He was the kid you told to do your dirty work for you, wasn't he?"

"Oh, he was very much into it himself," Cassandra responded. "The perks we gave him were just a bonus."

"So wait... what is this Leader of the Chosen business? And seriously... how did you get out?"

"He told me you were that person. That's all I know. As for how we got out - don't tell me you didn't notice where the control room was, at least?"

"What?", Lee asked, confused.

Cassandra sighed. "You didn't notice it was below ground level? Figures."

"I did.", a new voice said. Lee turned to see that Kimmie had just run over to them.

"Kimberly."

"Mom."

Lee stared silently. The tension was so high that it fit the proverbial butter-knife metaphor.

"So? What did you read in that book after all?" Cassandra seemed to ignore her daughter's presence entirely, continuing impatiently.

Lee sighed. "You know," he said, "maybe I shouldn't even be talking to you right now. You're helping us out right now, sure, but it's all but guaranteed you'll just turn against us later. Your company has hurt friends and family right here at this school. You took two of my family members away just for your schemes! For crying out loud, you're a horrible mother to your own daughter!" Lee was now yelling, not particularly caring whether this attracted attention from the creatures fighting not far away.

"How dare you?" It was Cassandra's turn to raise her voice. "I raised both your brother and certainly my daughter as best as a mother could! They are obviously spoiled, ungrateful brats who need to be taught a lesson - as do you."

"Since you don't even want to admit your failings as a parent, let alone company manager, I don't think there's much point in talking anymore."

"He's right." Kimmie had finally decided to speak up. "Enough is enough. Mom, you're either with us or against us now."


	21. Chapter 21

"Where are the others?", Lee finally began, trying to bring the tension between Kimmie and her mother down a notch or two.

"We got away for the most part - not like we can do much without proper weaponry anyways. I think your brother's still fighting, though..."

"Did everyone get away?"

"Well, come to think of it... I'm not sure..."

"Who isn't there, Kimmie?" She sighed, and Lee noticed that she really resembled her mother in doing so. "Kimmie!"

"Look, I don't know where they went. All I saw was the key on the ground, them grabbing it, then one of the creatures chasing after them. I didn't get to see what happened after that - it all happened so fast."

"You lost one of the keys?", Cassandra demanded. "You really aren't fit for that title after all, are you?"

"Well...", Lee said, unsure of how to respond. Then he realized that Kimmie had omitted a crucial detail from her narrative. "Wait...", he asked, "but who was it?"

"Jenny and Tina. Tina picked up the key, and Jenny ran after her."

Before Lee could react to this turn of events, Cassandra suddenly interjected: "You know what? Fine... since I suppose it doesn't matter much now anyways, I'll tell you that what you two don't know - besides the fact that I was the one who helped you by leaving the objects you found and even guiding you away from the casino (which I ordered captured) through my control of Barrage, of course - is that the company... well... no longer really exists."

"How come!?", Kimmie and Lee asked in unison.

"It wasn't by accident that the control room was placed below ground level. Coral Grove was originally entirely submerged. Remember, it was built by a lizard species - they're great swimmers, you know." Cassandra paused for a moment, then continued. "We built the top part ourselves, as a sort of mirror image - but one with an escape plan. You see, it was obvious that it simply wasn't feasible to build enough submarines to allow everyone to escape in the event of an emergency, so the top part was built such that when the self-destruct mechanism was triggered, it turned into - well, a giant escape pod, for lack of a better term."

Both of the teens listening to Cassandra were shocked. She continued: "You have no idea how much everything in the company depended on Coral Grove. It was His Eminence's idea in the first place - he's quite the centralization freak, so to speak... and I'd say it shows in terms of his species building this pyramid as well." She chuckled briefly, then became serious again. "Without the headquarters, we are nothing. MWF is no more."

"How can we trust you?", Lee demanded. "You're the one who lied to us and kept us trapped over there!"

"You can't trust her," a voice spoke out. "You can trust me."


	22. Chapter 22

In the commotion, someone had bumped into Lee from behind - it was Tina! The bump had caused Lee to drop one of the keys. "Here," she said, picking it up. He didn't seem to notice. Just as she was about to get his attention to hand it back to him, however, it caught the attention of one of the lizard creatures. Tina saw it coming after her and ran.

Jenny saw her take off and ran after her with the monster in hot pursuit, yelling louder as she noticed the creature now pursuing both of them, but the key primarily: "Tina, where are you... uh-oh! Tina!"

The creature seemed unrelenting in its pursuit. In their hurry, the girls scarcely even noticed where they were going - they were heading to the exit from the tunnels into the school library. Thinking quickly, Tina, who had just come up to the doorway, inserted the key she was carrying into the lock and opened it. "Come on," she yelled to Jenny. Jenny barely squeezed through as the door closed, cutting off the monster's access to the premises.

"So, what now?", Jenny asked.

"I don't know! Do you expect me to know everything?", Tina exclaimed.

"Whoa, calm down," Jenny said. "Am I not supposed to be the mean one here?", she continued, now grinning slightly.

Tina sighed. "Okay, let's figure out a plan of action. Lee probably needs this key downstairs, right? So I guess we should bring it back..."

"Always about Lee, eh?", Jenny asked with a smirk. Seeing Tina's hostile glare, however, she backed down: "Okay, okay... I guess you're right."

"We obviously can't go back that way," Tina continued. As if to reinforce her point, noises coming from behind the door they had just come through seemed to indicate the creature that had chased them was no longer the only one in the passageway they had used. "We're gonna have to risk going through the library. On three, okay?" Tina motioned towards the sliding door that was the exit from the small walled-off room that they were now in into the rest of the library. "One, two, three!" They opened the door together.

They almost immediately realized doing so was a mistake. Not one but two Cleaners came through the doorway, crystallizers pointed straight at them. They quickly realized they were caught; Tina was forced to surrender the key to one of them as both robots clearly prepared to fire at them.

Suddenly, a crystallizer beam from somewhere they couldn't quite see zapped both of the robots in question! They turned to see the librarian - that same librarian who they had been very certain was quite senile indeed - crystallizing both of the Cleaners with a single shot. "No way! We thought you were just..."

"What? A doddering old fool?", she said, eyeing them suspiciously.

"I was going to say, a nice little old lady, but..."

"Ha! How many clues do I have to give you girls? Really? I gave you info on Finnwich and the book. I directed you to the page on Coral Grove. For crying out loud, I even dropped that tidbit about having a date with Finnwich! Of course, that's nothing compared to... well... really, can you not see the family resemblance?"

The girls looked at each other, shocked. How blind they had been - how could they not have connected the distinctive chins before? Tina said, "Are you...", then trailed off and looked at Jenny; together, they exclaimed: "Are you Wurst's daughter!?"

"Finally you figured something out without me having to tell you!", the librarian said in an annoyed tone. Then her expression softened up ever so slightly, and she said, "Come on, girls! There's very little time left!"

"Time for what?"

"Why, to open the pyramid, of course! Let's go, before it's too late!" Before either of the girls could say anything, the librarian decrystallized the hand of the Cleaner holding the key and set it into the lock, opening the door to the tunnels.


	23. Chapter 23

"She speaks the truth."

This time, Lee was scarcely shocked at Finnwich's reappearance. It was the person next to Finnwich whose presence here did shock him.

Lee's father was there.

Before Lee could react to his father's arrival - in any visible way, at least - a person Lee did not recognize, but assumed to be a Coral Grove employee, came running up to Cassandra: "Enemy forces have been contained." Lee suddenly realized that the fighting had indeed ceased.

"Excellent," Finnwich said, almost as if the message was for him instead of Cassandra, "it is almost time then. You know what to do?", he continued, turning to Lee's father Alfred, or Al for short. The latter nodded.

"Dad..." Lee wasted no time asking for clarification. "You're here to open the pyramid with your mark along with Finnwich, aren't you?"

"Not at all up to your usual standard, Lee. Only one out of two, I'm afraid. You see... I no longer bear the mark as a result of my modifications," Finnwich replied, once again as if the speaker had been addressing him.

Lee's next question was cut short as the few of them assembled there heard what seemed to be several people running down the stairs not far away. Finnwich and Al quickly ran, seemingly to see what this new commotion was about, and the rest of them followed. As they rounded a corner, the small group of people joined the larger group huddled not far from the pyramid - the rest of those who had escaped Coral Grove on the sub! However, Lee was distracted by the appearance of someone possibly even more unexpected than that of his father.

"The librarian!?", Lee exclaimed under his breath - indeed, almost silently. "You've got to be kidding me!" He saw the woman running towards the pyramid entrance - which was no longer guarded - and Jenny and Tina running towards him.

"Yeah, I know," Tina began as she neared Lee, "but it's her! She's Wurst's daughter!"

"Of course!", Lee responded. "It all makes sense now. Finnwich must have figured out a way to destroy the pyramid, and now the two of them need to open it to do that... of course!", Lee exclaimed again. "It has to be done from the inside!"

"Well-observed, Lee," Finnwich suddenly said from just behind him, slightly startling him. Lee noted the use of his actual name - a rarity as far as Finnwich's speech was concerned. "Now, if you may..." Lee realized that his father had been waiting patiently for him to hand over the key he was still holding.

With both keys in their slots, and two mark-bearers turning them, the pyramid opened once more. Finnwich walked towards the pyramid entrance along with an object Lee recognized as looking identical to the one the wizard had previously used in a failed attempt to destroy the structure.

Suddenly, all of them were startled as a deep, harsh voice growled: "I DO NOT THINK SO, WALKING, TALKING PRIMATES!" The voice belonged to His Eminence, and the creature carried that same staff previously used to apply force fields to Lee and his friends. Within moments, the monster had covered many of the people holding the other members of the species in the room, allowing the latter to break free in significant numbers. The creature growled fiercely: "You shall not be allowed to destroy our pyramid..."; then with some uncertainty: "What is happening?"

Several people were then heard yelling: "We beat Barrage and we'll beat you too!" At that moment, an immensive wave of A. Nigma High students rushed the lizard species head-on, armed with crystallizers. Given that not all of the creatures had been freed before these new arrivals, the renewed struggle was brief, and victory for the students quick. His Eminence's staff was knocked from the monster's grasp in the struggle and slid towards the pyramid.

"Cam! Brandy!", several people yelled, including Lee, as they noticed who was clearly in charge of this group.

"Thought you might need a little help, guys," Cam said, grinning.

"Yeah, it's not like you guys handled this stuff all that well on your own last time," Brandy added.

Suddenly, Finnwich yelled: "The time is now!" He grabbed His Eminence's staff and shot a force field out of it around the entire pyramid, enclosing himself as well as he was now inside.

"Finnwich, what are you doing?", Lee yelled back at him.

"The pyramid must be destroyed after all the marks of those with them are gone," the wizard replied. "Even though I no longer physically bear the mark..."

Finnwich had trailed off, but what he was about to do seemed clear enough to Lee. "NO!", he shouted. "Don't do this!"

From just outside the pyramid, Lee watched helplessly as Finnwich placed the explosive device just as he had previously. This time, however, the wizard did not seem to make any attempt whatsoever to escape before the explosion.


	24. Chapter 24

The explosion was far louder and stronger than before. Everyone in the room - even the giant creatures - felt themselves physically shaken by it, no matter how far away from the pyramid itself they were standing. As before, the rubble filled much of the room - but this time, something extraordinary was happening to it. It was disintegrating right before everyone's eyes! Then, all of a sudden, the creatures began to disintegrate as well.

A voice from where the structure had been spoke. "You know, Manifestum, I did not finish my sentence... I was about to say that it was up to the pyramid to decide - and decide it did." Cheers and clapping erupted from the room as Finnwich reappeared as the dust cleared. The creatures from the pyramid, on the other hand, were no more, just as the material that had made up the structure itself.

Reconciliation was in the air. Lee quickly spotted his mother and father - the latter of whom was clearly still recovering from the shock the pyramid had delivered when removing his mark - and ran to them to embrace them. He saw his brother, uncertain as to whether he should join in. Lee motioned for him to come over; after a moment, the Ping family reunion was complete.

Through his peripheral vision, Lee saw many of those present hugging each other. Even those who were now obviously workers from Coral Grove shook hands, but this surprise paled in comparison to that which Lee noticed between Kimmie and her mother. After a brief moment of uncertainty on the part of both mother and daughter, Lee saw something that he had thought impossible with Cassandra's involvement - a hug.

"We will never be truly apart again, right?", Lee asked his now-reconstituted family. "Never, bro - I mean brother... I now know that this is my real family," Li responded. Then he sighed and continued: "It's too bad Priscilla is still recovering and can't be here right now." He was referring, of course, to his pet snake; she had been shocked by Cassandra during a battle between the three of them. Lee then broke from the family hug to embrace Tina, who had come up running towards him, but she had something else on her mind as they kissed once again. Lee realized he definitely wasn't the only one doing so - he spotted Cam and Brandy doing the same as well, among several other couples among the students.

Then Lee noticed Finnwich gesturing towards him and several other students to come over - specifically, the members of Lee's little group. As they walked over to the old man, Lee suddenly realized he was still quite confused about something. He turned to Finnwich and asked: "How did you know?"

"Ah, that was quite simple, my boy. You see, I had torn out a page from the book." It was not Lee but Tina and Jenny this time - who had been listening in on the conversation - who quickly realized something: that he was referring to the page he had torn out from the book before being taken away to Coral Grove after they had opened the pyramid together; they both recalled Jenny exclaiming: "Hey! How come the next page has been ripped out?" Finnwich continued: "While at Coral Grove, I retrieved a replica of a certain device that you are quite familiar with..." The wizard smiled at Lee.

"Of course!", Lee exclaimed. "The cipher... you had a replica?"

"Indeed, in my office," Finnwich said, "or rather my former office now, I suppose... I knew it was important to obtain just in time, and it seems I was correct on that count."

Lee smiled back, in part because of his deduction of this matter. Then he turned to Cam and asked: "You mentioned something about beating Barrage... did you really?"

"Oh, that... dude was like under control again, and he told us all to go back to class, you know, as if nothing had happened...", Cam began.

Brandy continued where he had left off: "So we ended up using Finnwich's little trick - you know, the one you told us about..."

"Oh, you turned him off then?"

"It wasn't easy, bro...", Cam responded. "We had to, like, sneak up on him and all that. Of course," Cam said, pausing for a moment then continuing, "we do make a great team as leaders..." He trailed off, nodding at Brandy. "Well, everyone else helped a lot too, of course," he said after a moment.

The teens stood along with the elderly wizard to loud applause and cheering. Lee realized that the situation was much like that of an incredible performance having come to an end - except that, instead of bowing, the main actors just stood there soaking in the adulation.

After all the small group of friends had been through, finally receiving some proper recognition from a significant number of other people was definitely pleasant, especially since many of those others had been unaware of their deeds on previous occasions (not least due to brainwashing). However, they all knew that even this was unimportant compared to something else they had gained throughout their adventures, something even more intangible but more valuable. They had gained true friendship.

"Well, this is it, isn't it?", Lee asked his friends. "Yeah, bro," Cam responded. "Most yesfinitely!", Holger exclaimed. "Yes," Tina said, "I think it is."


	25. Chapter 25

In their celebratory mood, what the small gathering of main characters in this narrative had temporarily forgotten was that one should always expect the unexpected at A. Nigma High. Sure enough, as the festivities, so to speak, continued, the announcement system suddenly blared: "Hey padres and padrettes! You think this is over? Why, it's only just begun! For those of you who don't remember me after the brainwashing: I'm Lynch, and I'm here with Victoria - and we've sort of decided to take over the world with our army of clones. Speaking of which, here they are right now!" Everyone watched, temporarily frozen, as countless clones appeared in the passageways to the room they were in. The group of friends looked at each other and said nothing, but the unspoken thought they all had was clear: here we go again...


End file.
